Adventures in Ferromagnetism

What a busy week.
Sunday, my sister Tracy arrived from Denver for a brief visit. Michele and I drove to the Madison airport to pick her up, with Jacob in the back seat helping navigate by spotting the planes as we got closer. I have been the co-pilot for this trip once before but never the driver so I did print off some directions and ran out the door. My sister Michele co-piloted our adventure and as we got into the heart of Madison, she looked closer at the map to see that our destination was listed as "center of Madison", not "Dane County Airport." Apparently, when I printed the map, yahoo didn't recognize the address so it just gave me a default map and I didn't notice it when I glanced on my way out the door. So, Michele pulled out the old school road map of Madison and tried to put a plan in place to get to the right spot. I knew we were in trouble when she said. "Oh I'm not the best map reader........" We got the full scenic tour of Madison and several nearby communities, landing finally in DeForest before I called Mike to navigate us to the right place, arriving in a mere 1 hour and 45 minutes (It's about a 45 minute drive). What a fiasco! Somehow we managed to get there just as Tracy deboarded her plane. Unfortunately they lost her luggage, but it arrived bright and early the next morning.
We have had lots of family time this week. Chef Boy-R-Mike has been cooking up a storm for suppers. I took yesterday off and Tracy and I ran around running errands. We have certainly enjoyed our time together.

I am feeling a little sad this week though. For many years, I was a cub scout den leader and later a boy scout leader for my sons' pack/troop. One of the scouts that I followed from about 2nd grade on was a little boy who was kind of special to us. He was a little boy who came from a family that didn't have a lot of financial advantages. He was smaller than the other boys and less mature, had some trouble relating to other kids socially at his age level. He was the kind of kid that others at school picked on for being a little different. For me, he was the kid I wanted to tuck under my wing and protect from that. He was appreciative of everything we did for him and he was genuinely excited by the things we planned to do with the scouts. We exposed him to a lot of outdoor activities, I took him on overnight camp for the first time ever the summer between 4th and 5th grade and Mike took him to scout camp the next year with the group. Along with some others, we facilitated the troop "adopting" their family for Christmas one year and were able to provide them with some basics that they didn't have in their small run-down trailer, like a working stove and other things many of us think are basic necessities that they just didn't have. Anyway, this past Friday morning our little friend Scotty and his mother and sister were discovered brutally murdered in their mobile home. It just sickens me to imagine the atrocities this little boy and his family saw before they died. Last night, they arrested a man in the case, a long-time sex offender who lived in the same trailer park. I hope they fry that bastard. Slowly and painfully.